Poland: No New Coal-Fired Power Plants

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Poland, Europe's most coal-reliant nation, has said it will not build any more coal-fired power plants.

The country, which is under pressure from the European Union (EU) to clean up its electricity mix, will instead commit to phasing out its oldest plants, while focusing future investments on making the rest of the fleet more efficient and lowering emissions. Poland relies on coal for about 85% of its electricity.

Speaking at an energy meeting in Gdansk, Deputy Economy Minister Jerzy Pietrewicz said: "We will not back out of coal, but neither will our future electricity production developments be based on coal. [In the long term,] the growth of Polish electricity production will not come from coal."

He acknowledged the pressure from other European nations to lower emissions from its power sector, but also warned that the EU's strict energy policy will increase the country's power production costs and force it to import more electricity.

"The EU is preparing to tighten its policy toward raising the price of CO2 emission permits, and this means that costs in our electricity industry, which is reliant on solid fuels, will rise and its competitiveness will therefore decrease" he said.

Last week, Industrial Info reported on a landmark deal between European governments, the European Commission (EC) and the European Parliament, that will result in a rapid overhaul of the region's failing carbon emissions control system. The goal is to take billions of allowances out of play from the Emission Trade System (ETS) in order to boost the price. The higher cost of carbon permits will greatly affect power utilities with large fleets of older coal-, gas- and oil-fired power plants. For additional information, see May 11, 2015, article - Europe Agrees on Landmark Carbon Deal.

According to Europe's Association for Coal and Lignite (Euracoal), more than half of Polish power stations are more than 25 years old.

This week, Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz confirmed the country is committed to investing more in alternative electricity sources, including renewables and nuclear power, as well as modernizing its existing coal-fired plants.

"Poland can afford to use the [natural resource] treasure which is coal, while at the same time investing in new technologies that will reduce air pollution," Kopacz said at the start of construction of a new power unit at the Elektrownia Turow plant. She confirmed that environmental legislation and old technology will force the closure of older coal-fired plants with a combined generating capacity of 12 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.

In March, state-owned Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PW:PGE) (Warsaw, Poland) awarded a contract for the 450-MW unit addition at Elektrownia Turow to a Hitachi-led consortium in a deal worth almost $1.1 billion.

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